Erick stepped away from Margleknot, to a different sort of knot of time and space, where three different lives were all tangling together, back on Fenrir. Erick had many other places he wanted to be, but he went here, first, because as soon as he went back to the Cloud Castle over Candlepoint he’d be settled in for the long haul, whatever that might mean.

In Solomon’s Black Castle of Dungeon Island, south of Ascendant Mountain, Erick stepped into the family gathering room on the upper floor.

Solomon stood gathering Genesis and Divinity, arms raised wide, eyes focused forward, gold and silver melding into a large red crystal that was not really Red anymore. It contained the sleeping soul of Debby, or at least what remained of her. Solomon had not been able to bring her back through his [Silver Heart] rituals because she had been trapped inside implacable Malevolence, inside Nothanganathor’s Sign of Power.

But now Debby was here, waiting to be born again.

Destiny lay on the ground, spent. She had been helping until she couldn’t help anymore. All of her attempts to help Solomon bring Debby back had been ruined, and her failure and Solomon’s similar inability, and even Rozeta’s unwillingness to help more than she already had, was threatening to shatter a family-that-could-be.

Erick had stepped into a knot of Benevolence; a black tangle in the Benevolent Sky.

Solomon hadn’t even considered calling out to Erick for help, for to do so would be to admit that he could not do this himself, which would have ruined the ritual in a whole different direction. Wizardry worked best when the caster believed, after all, and Solomon had the beliefs of countless Ericks-that-failed working with him to help him complete this magic already. He was set with help.

But there was a fly in the ointment. Solomon considered himself the ‘Ericks that failed’.

In another, grander and more understandable sort of way, Solomon was trying to do too much. He was trying to bring back every Jane-that-died. That was what was going to ruin the ritual. Solomon’s grand cooperative cultivation had created Fenrir, and he could do a lot in that sort of direction, but that was easy compared to this. The creation of Fenrir was one person using a bunch of other people to make an object in the sky. What Solomon was doing now was trying to do the [Silver Heart] ritual across an infinity of slices of this Layer, bringing back every Jane that ever died. No matter how impressive Fenrir was, it was still just a single object. An infinity of lives was still an infinity of lives.

And then there was another problem. He believed it was his fault that Fenrir failed to trap Nothanganathor.

Those thoughts were poison.

Solomon looked at Erick as he cast, as mana charged the air and flowed into Debby in an endless tide. He gave Erick a look of utter dismay, and sadness, that Erick was going to step in and take over. That once again, Erick would be the one that would succeed, and he would fail, yet again.

Erick didn’t do that, though.

Erick simply said, “You’ve already succeeded, Solomon. You have to let her be born as who she is. You can’t make her everything. She has to do that herself. And she will.”

Destiny propped herself up on her arms, coughing, “You’ve done enou— enough, Solomon.”

Erick had done no magic, and neither had Destiny.

That was why Solomon believed them.

He had done enough.

Solomon’s dismayed gaze turned softer.

He gazed upon Debby, and then he tied up his spellwork, completing the working, cutting off countless other dead Janes that had yet to become part of Debby. He let his magic happen, as it was.

Gold directed silver and Genesis blossomed inside the not-Red crystal, crackling the surface as Debby once again took form, her body materializing in a flashing instant.

Things happened fast from there.

Debby coughed. Destiny said small expletives of thanks to various gods. Solomon fell to his knees, before his daughter. Debby had been changed by the Red, her irises crimson, her hair fire-red, her nails the color of blood. But she was Debby. She was a Jane from another multiverse, taken out of so many different Red Deaths and then brought forth into this life, but mostly she was the Debby that had been born of a dungeon slime, who had decided to become daughter of Solomon, who had died trying to get them all information about Nothanganathor, to wake them all up to the real threat of the Red.

Debby glanced at Erick, but then dismissed him as not her father.

Solomon, though, she stared at, because she could not believe who she was seeing.

Tears of blood rolled down Debby’s stoic face. Those tears rapidly became normal tears, as she whispered, “Dad?”

Solomon went to his daughter and took her into his arms, hugging her tight, “I’m here, Jane. I’m here.”

Debby-Jane held her father, and both of them cried out at the reunion.

Eventually, they would speak about Nothanganathor, multiverses, dungeon slimes becoming people, and all of that. But for now, Father held daughter, and all was good.

Destiny smiled from the sidelines alongside Erick.

Before all the multiverse stuff, and after all the crying yet to come, Solomon introduced Debby to Destiny, saying, “You know Destiny. It’s been a few years and… many different lives since you were here. Destiny is my wife, now.”

A moment of tension snapped.

Debby frowned. “I’m not ready to have a mother yet.”

Destiny laughed, Erick smiled, and Solomon began backpedaling, starting to talk about the multiverse and all of the big topics—

“Before all of that!” Debby looked at Erick, now, saying, “So you’re the uber-god, now? That’s the sense I’m getting from a lingering connection to Melemizargo.”

Erick said. “Right now I’m just an uncle who is very glad to see you— Oh yeah! You didn’t get to be a dragon yet. All your siblings are dragons now. You want to be a Benevolence Dragon? Or you could ask your dad about being a Genesis dragon! Or just a normal dragon; the Dragon Curse is gone.”

Debby’s eyebrows rose as she was left speechless.

Solomon grinned at his daughter as he asked Erick, “Will anyone want to be a normal dragon, if something like the Dragon Curse was even possible?”

“A Dragon Curse can only ever go so far. It only worked on Veird because Veird was so small, and Nothanganathor disrupted all the timelines where the Curse was broken. Veird would have broken out so many different ways if not for Nothanganathor’s various tricks.”

Debby was a little lost, so before she got more lost, she spoke up, “Okay! I want to be a dragon, yes. I want to learn magic now, too, from…” She looked at her father and uncle. “From someone. I want to know everything that happened after I died, too, so that I can make sure it never happens again, and I need phenomenal magic to do that.”

Solomon and Erick looked at each other and made a cooperative choice.

Solomon tried to be unexcited and kinda failed, as he casually said, “I’m sure I have some things I could teach you, if you want to learn.”

Erick added, “Maybe I have some useful magics, too.”

Debby smiled.

- - - -

Erick stepped into the cloud castle carrying a case of beer in cans from Margleknot. The castle was empty and the beer was the good stuff.

He sat down next to Poi, who was watching the false sun set on the horizon, painting the world in oranges and reds. He already had some beer, but Erick set a can down next to him.

Poi did not notice Erick right away, because Poi was in two very different places right now. Here, and also on the inner surface of Fenrir, more than a million kilometers away. He was currently creating a Crossroads with the help of Ascendant Prime and his sister Rizala, who were both in the Mind Mage city of Cerebrum on the second sphere, up above this Former Surface. To say that they were ‘in Cerebrum’ was a small lie, though. They were mostly spread out all over the place, just like Poi was right now.

Poi eventually noticed Erick, though. He blinked a few times, the pale blue light in his eyes returning, and then he gasped a little, before chuckling. “I can see your mind again.”

Erick had opened up his mind once again. It was easy when one was a god, to do many impossible things at once. Using Erick’s memories, Poi cracked open the beer can as though he had been using them all his life, and yet there had never been beer cans on Veird until this moment.

Poi said, “But that’s not all of you?”

Erick smiled. “I’ve got it set up to show you all the normal things I’m thinking, and I can even use normal Mind Magic, too. So there’s no real hiding trick, except for hiding the god stuff. And now you can know how to open a beer can without being told! It’s amazing, all around.” He smirked. “I might even be vulnerable to Mind Magic.”

Poi snorted. “Pity the fools that try that on you.”

Erick chuckled.

After a moment of comfortable silence, Poi said, “I’m glad, Erick. Really happy. Everything worked out.”

“Were there ever any doubts?”

With a small joy in his voice, Poi said, “Soooo many doubts. Everywhere! All the time!”

Erick laughed.

- - - -

Erick lay in bed with Quilatalap, both of them just breathing, holding onto each other, enjoying the moment.

“I love you. I missed you a lot,” Erick said.

“I love you, too. Do you want to talk about where you went?”

“Not really. Not yet. I mostly [Onward]ed it, anyway.” Erick smiled and said, “So about me needing to give you lots of reasons to still love me as you work through your trauma: How about some god sex?”

Quilatalap paused as Erick’s words actually sunk in, and then he started chuckling, his chest heaving under Erick’s arms. “You mean that wasn’t god sex? You’re holding out on me!”

Erick laughed.

It was a good day.

- - - -

The next day, Teressa and Rizala and Dariok held a party at the Cloud Castle for the extended family.

It was a barbecue in big pits with smoke and beer, and bonfires and small talks, and lots of desserts and lots of good times, getting together with everyone.

Everywhere, all across Veird and Fenrir, the same sort of thing was happening, as it could. People met with family. They reconnected in their new lives. They made bread from wheat [Grow]n in fields. They ate monsters grown in dungeon spaces, or out in the wilds. They built cities and made babies. They sailed boats across oceans the sizes of several planets, and hiked up mountains even larger.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

They made houses, and they made those houses into homes.

Back at the cloud castle, Teressa and Dariok introduced a new puppy to everyone, because Lenitha wanted a dog and it seemed like a good time to get one. It was a cute puppy that was already 50 kilos, because they were orcols. Eventually the dog would become the size of a human. Her name was Rex, because Teressa had asked Erick for dog names and that was what he had given her.

The cute little (really very big) puppy bounded everywhere, trying to get everyone’s food, but Lenitha was charged with teaching the puppy how to behave, and she was doing a great job. It helped that the dog was already super smart. Rex was a mixed breed that was part wardog, of the famous Wardogs of Nelboor, and part dober, of the much smaller, but no less famous form of dog that Erick had made out of some [Reincarnation]d shadowolves, down in Candlepoint well over 15 years ago by now. Dobers had become a truly prolific breed, being smart and loving, but able to fend off shadowolves all on their own. There were only about 50 pure dobers right now, but there would be a lot more in the future, for sure. Crossbreeding with [Husbandry] was where most people got their dobers, though, and that’s where Rex had come from.

Rex tried to eat Kiri’s [Familiar] off of her nearby perch.

Sunny was covered in bits of barbecue that she couldn’t really eat, but she really wanted to try, anyway, so Erick couldn’t really blame Rex for wanting to nibble. But Sunny flew away fast and Rex barked and gave chase. Lenitha gave chase, too, trying to get Rex to slow down. Everyone else laughed.

In a quiet way so Lenitha couldn’t hear, Teressa asked Kiri, “Is Sunny becoming herself? Or is that you playing with them?”

Kiri smiled as she leaned back in her lawn chair like a particularly proud almost-parent, saying, “She’s getting more independent. Normally she’d fly up, but she’s staying low enough so that she can still play. It’s not like Rex can hurt her, though. She just puffs away into light and reforms elsewhere.”

Teressa nodded, smiling a little. “Good.”

Kiri asked Erick, sitting beside her, “You’ll be Sunny’s godparent when she’s born, right?”

Erick grinned. “Yeah. I will.”

Kiri smiled. “Good.” And then she asked, “Are you the one I should pray to for matchmaking services? Because I think I want a husband.”

Erick laughed. “You can certainly ask! But no. Try Atunir. She loves that. She’d love to match the Gatemaster of Veird to some power out there in Fenrir.”

“Ah, passing the charge,” Kiri said, nodding. “Just like a good boss to delegate the hard tasks.”

Erick smiled at the many layered meanings to that. “There was that boy about 7 years ago that you had that fling with. He was a prince, wasn’t he?”

Kiri got a disgusted look on her face, sticking her tongue out a little… And then she paused. She wondered. She asked, “Him?” She shook her head and clicked her tongue. “No.”

Erick hid his grin behind his beer.

Somehow Jane and Debby got into a hot-wing eating contest, using what was considered 14 Star hot sauce. The sauce was deeply maroon and flickered with divinity, and the air was hot for ten meters around the sauce, even before the container was opened. When they opened the container some people had to put up shields. That hot sauce was practically Elemental Fire, and parts of it actually were.

The family cheered on Jane and Debby, while the kids and even some of the adults stood as far back as they could.

Both of the girls ate till they puked and needed healing, neither willing to concede defeat.

The new dog approached the puke and everyone tried to stop her, but she stopped herself when she got within a meter of the red stuff. She yelped and ran away, tucking her tail between her legs. Lenitha went chasing after her, calling out for her to come back.

It was another good day.

At the end of it, Erick hugged every person in his family, which was awkward for some of them, but it was what it was.

Jane hugged him back especially hard, though, saying to his shoulder, “I love you, Dad.”

Erick smiled and hugged her back. “I love you too, Jane.”

- - - -

A week passed fast.

A month soon followed.

Emergencies rose and were put to rest, but they were nothing that Erick couldn’t handle, and if not him, then one of the other gods could handle it. Melemizargo, primarily. Not much of that happened, though. Mostly, the problems were simple normal problems. Food, shelter, safety from confusion and danger. Erick worked tirelessly to ensure that everything returned to as much normalcy as he could.

Mostly, people just lived their lives, figuring out their new world.

Erick and the Pantheon worked tirelessly and quickly to sculpt Fenrir into something that would last. The hands in the center rapidly became a major source of worship, mainly through the awe of it all. From the interior surface, the sun was still just the size of a thumbprint, but the hands reaching to the sun were both the size of the hands of that thumbprint. As they spun, they brought light and shadow in 12 hour increments for the vast majority of the interior.

They set up the exterior moonsuns to shine or dim based on the shadows cast by the hands around the sun, so even from the outside, you could see the shadows cast by the Dark, and people had normal day/night cycles.

In the deepest parts of the Dark, at the poles of the sphere, that is where they made the Gates to Darkness. For tens of thousands of kilometers, around sunmoons that never dimmed and shone the brightest they could, the world was Dark. One pole for going, the other for coming, though Erick suspected that controlling traffic would be an exercise in futility. Rather, it would be easier to set up shipping lanes with guides that knew how to get back and forth easily, because it wasn’t so easy to get into the New Painted Cosmology if you didn’t know the trick.

It wasn’t a blackhole problem, though, like with some universes.

The exact delineation between the Dark and the Fractal was difficult for a mortal to parse, but easy to understand, because in most ways, there was no delineation. One merely had to go through the Dark land, hoping to reach the Darkness, and you would emerge in the Painted Cosmology. The same was true for leaving the Painted Cosmology, to head back to the Fractal.

Erick had just stepped through that delineation again, and for the hundredth time.

It had only been a month since they had put Fenrir to rights, but the work of putting the entire Painted Cosmology to rights would take the rest of Erick’s life, and further beyond that, because there was no end to that task, that joy, at all. It was just life, and it was a good one.

The Painted Cosmology was a land of sprawling elements, pure in their creation. Particles had no place here, except for what people brought into this land.

Elemental Stone became Elemental Mountain and then Elemental Continent when strung together large enough.

Elemental Water became Elemental Lake, and then Ocean if there was enough of it.

Elemental Air became Wind, became Atmosphere.

Fire became Blaze, became Conflagration and more.

Put them together and you got a world running on physics which Erick had never seen before, but which seemed simple enough to understand, especially when some of those Elements got up and started walking around, laying down more of themselves, all of it fueled by Dark Marks in every soul, carving the Dark into what they wanted it to be.

Among the Grand Creation were the fae of Fairy Moon’s court. They were the ones doing the major lifting, making worlds out of mana, turning a lot of Darkness into stable land.

Erick crafted a few sunstars while he stood there, at the Edge, setting them adrift and glowing with Benevolence, brighter than the other Light-based sunstars. Where they flowed, life came into being. Elemental Stone and Water spontaneously grew into Plant, crowding out oceans and mountains. Soon slimes took to life. Benevolence Sprites flickered out of the Benevolence stars to coax life into more complex forms.

Erick was a little surprised at that, but he had seen it many times already, and he would probably continue to be surprised at it for a while. It was nice, though, to see Benevolence so easily becoming life, all on its own, and then more than that.

For a while, Erick just watched it all.

And then Rozeta floated beside him, in the space just inside the Dark, watching worlds with him. She held out a muffin, reminiscent of so long ago, except wholly different. Back in the Grand Wizard’s Tower in the Outer Core of Veird, Rozeta had spoken to Erick about Wizards and the Painted Cosmology, and she had spoken of how particle-based muffins were 90% the same as Old Cosmology muffins, but they were, in truth, completely different. Those muffins in that Grand Wizard’s Tower had been made of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and other trace elements. This one was made of Elemental Plant, which was a combination of Light, Stone, Water, and even a bit of Benevolence for this particular muffin. That was just the main plant-based material, though. There was also Elemental—

Rozeta couldn’t help herself any longer. She laughed, bright and happy, and then she picked up Erick’s hand and put the muffin in his hand, saying, “I like that when you’re dressed like a human you still think like a Wizard trying to figure it all out.”

Erick grinned, and then he bit into the muffin, and it tasted… quite normal, really. “I expected something amazing?”

Rozeta laughed again, free and happy. “I stole that one from Kromolok’s kitchen, so I’ll let him know you were disappointed.”

Erick changed his tune, “It’s a wonderful muffin. Best I ever ate.” He took another bite. “… Maybe my taste buds are set up for particles, though.”

“That’s the general problem, yes. That’s what I told Kromolok, too. I’m sure people will develop taste buds for Elements eventually, and then we can copy that and truly enjoy a good muffin.”

Erick smiled at that thought, and a comfortable silence enveloped them.

Rozeta looked out across the worlds with Erick, as a mortal.

Rozeta said, “You know… it’s been so long since I’ve been here. It’s all different. I’d say the bones were the same and the house is renovated, but it’s more like the world has been removed, and then we’re building a new one and starting with particles which are really Elements.”

“The fae are doing most of the work,” Erick said, not quite sure what he meant by that.

“Did you want to do some creation?”

Erick made another Benevolent sunstone and set it adrift into the Dark. It pushed back the grasping, clawing, beckoning cacophony of the Dark, making way for the light. The Dark welcomed the light, really, and the light created every other basic Element out of the retreating Dark. But it was a cacophony of creation. Completely disarrayed, with Stone and Wind and Water and all the rest appearing like auroras that lost cohesion as Benevolence and became smaller things.

Some of the fae working where Erick had sent the sunlight gave Erick some bad looks, as their stone got water all over it, or their fire got light all in it. They grumbled, and told him to send the lights further into the Dark, and to leave their parts of creation alone.

Erick sent out another Benevolent sunlight, far away from the current areas, saying, “I’m not that great at creation. Melemizargo is loving it, though.”

Melemizargo was a Creation Wizard, after all. Or at least he had been, and now he was again, of a sort.

Erick watched him now, beyond the Dark, inside the Black, like a flow moving under an ocean’s surface, unseen except in the barest of ways, and only through inference.

And then Melemizargo surfaced and grabbed Erick’s sunlight and sent it spinning deep into the Dark, like a spear cast from a god, which is what it became. The sunlight spear crashed through the Dark, parting the Black, and the Black seemed to clap at its passing. It went far, far beyond sight, trailing a bit of creation with it as it went, leaving a mana river in its wake. It would probably keep going forever. Melemizargo had already done similar acts of Creation with other things the fae had created.

Rozeta frowned a little, saying, “I think you gave him too much power.”

Erick shrugged. “I don’t think I did.”

Erick made another sunlight, the crystal of Benevolence forming in front of him like a radiant prism, cascading in every direction with creation. He imbued this one with a [Silver Heart] of Elemental Genesis, and the whole thing started to glow like the Lifeblood Heart of so long ago. The universe turned into an aurora, that then began to grow all on its own.

Erick gave the light a flick, sending it careening into creation, passing by every single fae’s work and doubling what they already had going on.

There were many, many complaints about that, but they were trying to make sandcastles when the beach was the size of a small house. Erick thought they should just be trying to make more and more and not focus so much on the small right now, but he was clearly outvoted.

He was having fun anyway.

Erick smiled and pulled back from creating, saying, “I’ve got a party to attend and be back here later. Want to come?”

“I might show up, but have fun with your family, Erick. I do want to know when I can plan on speaking with you regarding godly manners, though. Do you have…” she smirked. “Office hours?”

Erick chuckled. “Well… I used a method a few times when I was realizing myself under the Mantle, and it seemed to work well enough. I’ll probably pull the Mantle on tight every time I sleep, and that should be good enough since I’m not very linear. Other than that, I’ll be more or less this guy you see before you, going forward, in the waking hours.”

Rozeta smiled softly, as emotions came and stayed, and then moved on slowly, but not really. “I’m really glad you won, Erick. Thanks… Thanks for everything. And for my sons. Both of them. Kirginatharp is doing well now, and Idyrvamikor is… adjusting. I had never thought Idyrvamikor could have been changed like that, but he had been. And now he’s back. Thank you.”

Erick smiled. “Those two back to fighting, yet?”

“Ha!” Rozeta got a far-off look on her face as she gazed upon the Painted Cosmology, saying, “I’ll give it a few hundred years before they find something to fight about again, but maybe not? They only fought because Nothanganathor was twisting them to fight… Mostly. Idyrvamikor achieved Wizardry the very second he realized he was without it, of course. That boy was always bright. But Kirginatharp is the older brother now, by a lot, and he Ignited to Wizardry just the other day, so that’s done a lot of good to their dynamic.”

Erick nodded. “I wish them good luck, then, and you, too. You sure you don’t want to come to the big party? It’s not just family at this one.”

“I’ll see you soon, Erick.”

“See you soon, then.”

Erick departed.

- - - -

Rozeta watched Erick return through the portal, which was half of the current size of the Painted Cosmology universe, and thought it all quite amazing.

Everything had all worked out perfectly.

Rozeta chuckled to herself, as she watched the Painted Cosmology grow, as she thought back, years and years ago, to when she first saw Erick and Jane pop into the world, their little blue boxes appearing as a notification on the Core of Veird. They had almost gotten themselves killed right off the starting line, due to her father, and then again due to them possibly messing with the Script, which was a paladinable offense. But then she saw his mana generation was Wizard-level, and she chose to do what gods usually did.

She waited, and she saw.

And then Erick connected positive particles to negative particles in several kilometers-worth of sky and caused lightning to strike a tower in Spur.

A lot had happened since then.

A lot more would happen from now until Eternity.